1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed and claimed herein generally pertains to a method and system for analyzing effects of a software maintenance patch on respective configuration items in a configurable managed environment, such as a configuration management database (CMDB). More particularly, the invention pertains to a method of the above type wherein a description of the software maintenance patch and the products or other elements that it targets are compared with the contents of the CMDB, in order to identify configuration items contained therein that will be impacted or affected by the maintenance patch.
2. Description of the Related Art
Configuration management is a process for identifying, controlling and tracking the hardware, software and other components of one or more configurable systems in a configurable managed environment, such as an Information Technology organization. Components included in a configurable system are referred to as configuration items (CIs). The configuration management process includes performing tasks, such as identifying CIs and their relationships with other CIs, and adding them to a configuration management database that generally contains detailed information, for each CI listed therein. A CMDB is a database that contains all relevant details for each CI, such as relationships between CIs, state or status and historical information. A related CMDB product of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is known as the Configuration and Change Management Database (CCMDB).
A software maintenance patch, as such term is used herein, generally refers to one or more software updates or upgrades for debugging, fixing or enhancing specified software components. Typically, a software maintenance patch includes a set of software updates or fixes, and may also be referred to as a fix pack. Frequently, when a software maintenance patch is applied to the intended software components of a data processing system or the like, relationships between the intended components and other components of the system are not fully understood or appreciated. Accordingly, application of the software maintenance patch can produce results which are not intended or expected, and may also not be desired. The system usefully can be a configurable managed system associated with a CMDB.
When a software maintenance patch is applied to a system, it is quite common for a system administrator to rely on personal experience in gauging or anticipating the likely impact of the patch on components of the system. Alternatively, the administrator may rely on others in his/her organization who are deemed to have relevant experience. System administrators may also rely on release notes, which are commonly supplied by software vendors to describe the content and applicability of the software maintenance deliverables that the vendors provide. However, this type of documentation tends to be unstructured and ambiguous, and often does not provide a sufficient basis for evaluating the necessity and risk of using the associated maintenance patch. The risks may be particularly significant, when performing critical system maintenance activities. Generally, all of the above information sources can be inadequate for use in maintenance evaluation, in view of the complex interrelations among components that are currently found in enterprise information systems infrastructures.
In addition, currently available maintenance installation tools, for use in installing software maintenance patches into CIs of a CMDB, are quite limited at best. For example, a system may contain a number of CIs that are all of the same type, but some of the CIs are products of a different vendor than other CIs. As a result, a tool or program for installing software maintenance patches in the CIs will typically be proprietary to only one of the vendors, and will not work for the CIs of other vendors. At present, there is generally no standard model for maintenance installation tools, for use in applying software maintenance patches and the like, which can be used across the products of different vendors.